"Join the Museum for a free four-part Online Learning Series designed specifically for adults, exploring Japan's rise to power, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and key events of the early days of the Pacific war. With four live sessions accessible right from your computer, including the Museum's 75th Anniversary Commemoration, participants will see a variety of compelling sources and hear from a panel of experts to learn more about why and how the attack happened, and the challenges the United States faced after December 7, 1941."

"Join the Museum for a free four-part Online Learning Series designed specifically for adults, exploring Japan's rise to power, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and key events of the early days of the Pacific war. With four live sessions accessible right from your computer, including the Museum's 75th Anniversary Commemoration, participants will see a variety of compelling sources and hear from a panel of experts to learn more about why and how the attack happened, and the challenges the United States faced after December 7, 1941."

These are excellent. Parschall is THE expert on the IJN fleet, wrote the book on the Battle of Midway and is a frequent lecturer at the Naval War College.

The pirates, old and new, were attacking US shipping. That is plenty of reason to stop them.

The US did not shell Japan during the alleged "opening" because of the alleged execution of shipwreck victims. We attacked Japan during the opening, simply to force them to trade with us on unequal terms. The "Great Powers" had done the same thing to China a bit earlier.

The alleged execution of shipwreck victims, if they occurred at all, was easily justified in Japan because the "victims" were fishing in Japanese waters and depriving Japanese fisherman of their livelihood and Japan of its natural resources. How many were executed (I've looked and can't find a single provable number) and how died due to their injuries remains unknown and unproven. The shipwreck victim justification is very similar to the proven false claim of the mining of the USS Maine that was used to justify the Spanish-American War or even the Tonkin Gulf to justify Vietnam. The US has a history of cooking up stories to justify war and war-like acts.

Let's see. The Philippinos declare a republic and begin a rebellion against Spain. Some time later, on cooked up charges, the US attacks Spain's overseas possessions. The Spanish lose and the US pays Spain $20 million. If the war was justified to start with, why did we pay Spain anything? But I digress. Remember the Philippinos had already declared a republic, just like we did on July 4,1776. The US doesn't recognize that republic, it wants a colony. So the goes to war with the freedom loving Philippinos and kills them off by the hundreds of thousands.

So by the logic of the first post, if France or Spain had paid England for the US back in 1776, the French or Spanish would have been justified in crushing the American Revolution.

The US did not go to war in the Philippines, it initially got to war with Spain. Then it stayed.

China controlling Korea? That is new to me.

Anyway we were discussing Japan's actions, not actions by other nations.

The Philippines declared independence and later that year Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States. As Spain was no longer a combatant, it was certainly a war against the Filipinos. If you want to view it as an insurgency, fine. Don't get lost in trivia and ignore my point. Japan viewed Spain and the United States as colonial powers in the Pacific, rivals.

Read up on the First Sino-Japanese War, it was Japan's reaction to China's interest in controlling Korea.

You can't just look at Japan's actions and ignore the context and history, which certainly does involve other countries.

...that Japan was justified in treating the United States and Philippinos like they did in the Bataan Death March...

...after all these prisoners had been killing Japanese soldiers, and since Japan did not have transportation for them nor they were ready for moving those POWs...

...and that Japan was right on applying their Bushido warrior ethic.

From their point of view, yes. In every conflict, all of the combatants believe they are right or just or doing the will of God or making the world safe for democracy. The victors will always decide if the moral position of the vanquished was wrong or evil. By way of example, if the US had lost the Pacific war, LeMay would have been tried as a war criminal. As would Halsey, Vandegrift, MacArthur...because from the Japanese perspective, they committed many many war crimes against the Empire.

...that Japan was justified in treating the United States and Philippinos like they did in the Bataan Death March...

...after all these prisoners had been killing Japanese soldiers, and since Japan did not have transportation for them nor they were ready for moving those POWs...

...and that Japan was right on applying their Bushido warrior ethic.

From their point of view, yes. In every conflict, all of the combatants believe they are right or just or doing the will of God or making the world safe for democracy. The victors will always decide if the moral position of the vanquished was wrong or evil. By way of example, if the US had lost the Pacific war, LeMay would have been tried as a war criminal. As would Halsey, Vandegrift, MacArthur...because from the Japanese perspective, they committed many many war crimes against the Empire.

There were some who accused LeMay of war crimes for ordering the fire bombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities.Far more Japanese civilians died in the Fire Bomb raids then died in the Atomic Bombings.

...that Japan was justified in treating the United States and Philippinos like they did in the Bataan Death March...

...after all these prisoners had been killing Japanese soldiers, and since Japan did not have transportation for them nor they were ready for moving those POWs...

...and that Japan was right on applying their Bushido warrior ethic.

From their point of view, yes. In every conflict, all of the combatants believe they are right or just or doing the will of God or making the world safe for democracy. The victors will always decide if the moral position of the vanquished was wrong or evil. By way of example, if the US had lost the Pacific war, LeMay would have been tried as a war criminal. As would Halsey, Vandegrift, MacArthur...because from the Japanese perspective, they committed many many war crimes against the Empire.

There were some who accused LeMay of war crimes for ordering the fire bombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities.Far more Japanese civilians died in the Fire Bomb raids then died in the Atomic Bombings.

Yep but he was never tried or even reprimanded because the Allies won the war.

To add to the discussion, why make a big deal about the Pearl Harbor Attack? According to Wikipedia's article "List of Most Lethal American Battles", Pearl Harbor ranks 27th. Above Pearl Harbor are several US Civil War battles. The casualty counts for those includes the enemy, the Confederates. If you take out the Confederate numbers, some Civil War battles remain above Pearl Harbor, but Pearl Harbor only makes it to 19th place.

D-Day (Normandy) holds first place and there are usually some commemorations around that day. But you would be hard pressed to find any wide scale commemorations of the battles that lie between D-Day and Pearl Harbor. The top 4 have almost ten times more dead than Pearl Harbor. So why the single out Pearl Harbor for special mention?

To add another dimension (if possible) to the discussion, I find myself struck by the similarities between 1916 and 1940. In both years, a sitting U.S. President was running for re-election (Wilson, Roosevelt) while a "world war" was raging in Europe. In both years, said president made the centerpiece of his campaign the promise to not get involved in the European conflict. In both years, said president was, indeed, re-elected ... and within a year (or so) of inauguration was forced by circumstances to become involved in the very war he swore he'd stay out of.